


Dreams are Like Water

by Zigzagwanderer



Series: Tomorrow was our Golden Age. [1]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Post-Fall (Hannibal), Vakkrehejm 'verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-18 13:58:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13683102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zigzagwanderer/pseuds/Zigzagwanderer
Summary: Romantic gestures from our post-Fall couple, as they make a life for themselves on their remote Baltic island.





	Dreams are Like Water

**Author's Note:**

> Just woke up today and wrote this before work-forgive any rough edges, but I was in a romantic mood!

Everything is clear; the glass dishes, the sweet broth, though flecked with soused cherries, the ice-rainbowed sky and the pellucid straits below. The glass repels the rain, the aquavit fills the goblets. The lamp refracts through layer after layer of translucency, until even the shadows sparkle.

“So,” Will settles his spoon down and smiles faintly. “This kind of a Last Supper? More than a Valentine’s day thing?”

Hannibal, who has savoured the braised heart more slowly, sipped his dessert soup more thoughtfully, looks up. The two quiet gentlemen who live together on their little island in their little white house are, to one another, like the waters that surround them; entirely lucid and navigable unless muddied by some clouding hazard, something that has bobbed up unexpectedly, from the depths of their history. 

And this happens less and less often as the months pass. The glacial winter on Vakkrehejm has scoured any lingering opacity away; it has polished their mutual transparency to the point of it being both mirror and lens. 

So, Hannibal is not surprised at Will’s acuity, only at his timing. Will has been fey all day, and even more tactile than usual. It has been so on the other occasions when Hannibal has returned from hunting, and they usually do not make it to clearing the table. Conversations of any depth are most definitely reserved for much, much later, when all appetites are fed. 

He stares out across the archipelago. He may not nowadays be surprised at Will, but he is constantly amazed.

“To be happy,” he says, “we must be true to nature, and carry our age along with us.”  
“If you’re quoting Hazlitt, then I guess there were problems with subduing our…donor.” Will wants to say _dinner_ , but is a little too concerned for levity. The meat is in their freezer, Hannibal has returned without injury, without hue-and-cry, the itch scratched. But...

“Nothing insurmountable. And I have stopped before.”  
“When you were incarcerated. Or when we were nearly dead.”  
“Am I to be denied change?” Hannibal reaches across, flicks open the top buttons on Will’s shirt.  
Will can hardly believe his own next words. “You are to be denied premature _retirement_.” 

He doesn’t stop the unbuttoning, despite his indignation.

“The trafficker in question was decades younger than I, Will. Technique and cunning can only do so much.” Hannibal slides his hand into the opening he has made in Will's clothing and runs a thumb into the groove of Will’s clavicle. “I do not wish to be prevented from returning to you.” He speaks softly, and Will chimes and chimes, a struck crystal, joy ringing out across the little spits of rock and the limpid, liquid aquamarine. “Not for anything.”

Will grips Hannibal’s other wrist, finding nothing but sinew and strength. He sees steel, not silver, in Hannibal’s hair.

“Then,” Will says slowly, “maybe, next time, you just need a buddy. Someone to come along and watch your back.”

Hannibal looks at him.

Will wants to go upstairs _immediately_.

“And that way, if anything…happens, we’ll be together. Ok?” 

The dogs sense the end of the meal has somehow arrived and come politely charging in to their own bowls.  
Hannibal is hauling Will to his feet.  
There will be time to discuss, to compromise, to plan, much, _much_ later.

“So,” Will breathes, pulled close, propelled stairward. “Happy Valentine’s Day after all, right?" He laughs a little at the manhandling. At how ridiculously powerful Hannibal is. "Did you get me anything?”  
Hannibal kisses him. Again. Buttons are lost. Will finds a small box pushed into his hand. He is kissed. Again. The box shakes and he knows from the sound that there are two of them inside. Two rings.

And everything is clear. And even the shadows sparkle.


End file.
